"Council should pass a motion for these people to please
come back when they've stopped lying...." - Back Row Banter

Did anyone see this one coming? The gondola up the Chief.
Seriously, did anyone actually see this coming? Reflecting on the most
preposterous idea I've ever heard I now realize we have entered a new
day of Squamish. Today anything sounds reasonable because hey, "it's
not like they're putting a gondola up the Chief." It is now the yard
stick by which all hair-brained proposals shall be measured.

The first Chief gondola proposal came to council and
I still can't figure out if they're serious or just mocking us. The proposal
itself was a joke so completely riddled with misinformation that one might
wonder just what their true intentions were. The show started with the
baffling statement that the only opponents are "an elite group of
fit young people." I'm flattered, but if he bothered to looked closely
I'm pretty sure beer guts and balding heads far outnumbered the fit and
young. Sadly, this pretty much sums up just how far removed from our community
they are.

Also in attendance was the minister of Water, Land and
Air Protection who came to Squamish to have one question answered. Does
the community of Squamish endorse making an amendment to Stawamus Chief
master plan. Our mayor and council had this opportunity to say no but
they didn't. They appeared to panic and simply said that a gondola is
welcome, just not on the summit of the Chief!?! Argh! Why, oh why, prolong
this matter when you could have simply said the Chief provincial park?
All the Minister wanted to hear was that we wouldn't oppose the Liberals
move to open parks for business. As it is now, when it comes to parks,
corporations have to stay away. Not even an ice cream truck is allowed
to peddle their wears so as not to disrupt your experience. Allowing this
project in the park would open the floodgate for all kinds of things that
people use the parks to get away from.

Thankfully, the proponents lack of research didn,t manage
to charm the Squamish Nation who made it very clear that the issue is
the entire park. I can only imagine the awkward silence that must have
followed the best part of their presentation, "you wont even notice
it, we'll just put it up the backside of the Chief." Later the proponents
commented they "didn't realize how significant the Chief is to them."
Are you listening to yourself? It's called the Stawamus Chief for crying
in the soup!

So for now the Chief gondola issue is on intermission.
While we wait, other contentious location talk runs rampant. I'm excited
about the gondola to Echo lake (motor vehicles prohibited of course) and
a hut system throughout the Tantalus Range. Yes, I know the proposal is
not without it's detractors but hey "it's not like they're putting
a gondola up the Chief."